


come slowly eden

by fall_into_life



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F, F/M, Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, bad girl shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-13 23:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19261627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fall_into_life/pseuds/fall_into_life
Summary: Skye doesn't believe in soulmarks. She still ends up with five of them.(Or, how Skye started with a weight around her ankle, and ended with a garden in which to rest her head.)





	come slowly eden

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Emily Dickinson's poem of the same name.

Skye doesn't believe in soulmarks.

Okay, she believes in them as in she knows they're a thing that literally exist. What she doesn't believe in is the whole culture around them, the whole mythos. People think that finding a soulmark makes everything okay, that you've got a friend for life, or worse, their true love.

Skye knows the research, the statistics. Soulmarks form because they're linked to someone important, not because they're a magical cure-all. Just look at her: she's had one mark in her entire life, and it gets a little smaller every day. Miles who?

What she does believe in is superheroes. 

And that, in the worst way, leads her back around to believing in soulmarks.

[*]

Her wrist itches the second her van's doors pop open.

Skye doesn't think anything of it at first. Her whole body broke out into a cold sweat as soon as she saw the SHIELD goons, and they shoved a bag over her head right after. Brief itchiness where her sleeve has been chafing all day? Not on her radar.

It isn't until much later - after she's dropped her bags into her little cubicle-room - that she realizes what's happened. A white bell-shaped flower perches on the inside of her wrist where arm meets palm, barely the size of her fingertip. White heather. Protection.

Skye swears under her breath, scratches at the flower with her nail. It doesn't itch any more but it's a reflex to check if it's real. It feels like skin, like a mark, like the bay wreath around her ankle that's faded down to a single line of green. She knows immediately when she got it, but it's not developed enough for her to know who it's for. It doesn't tell her a name the way her wreath sings _Miles_.

"Skye?" Simmons calls from outside her door, politely anxious. "Is everything alright?"

"I'm fine!" Skye scrubs the pad of her thumb over the flower, hissing out a breath through her teeth. The heather stays where it is. She could swear it gets a little bigger. Just to spite her, of course.

She plasters on a smile, sliding on out of the cubicle. "So, where do you guys keep the snacks?"

[*]

Skye's second and third marks form in the skies above Brazil, which isn't something she ever thought she'd say.

She, Ward, and FitzSimmons pull a plan directly out of their butts. It works, saves the day pretty handily. Skye's never worked like this with anyone, and it pulses through her veins, setting her whole body on fire. She exchanges over-enthusiastic hugs with Fitz and Simmons and a very manly handshake with Ward. Even Melinda, who isn't much for touching anyone, gives them all restrained smiles.

After, it's just the three of them sitting in the lounge: Skye, Fitz, and Simmons. They should probably be cleaning, but the jittery adrenaline feeling makes it hard to focus on any one thing. They just saved a whole lot of people by keeping the 0-8-4 away from Peru's commandant, and Skye's not ready to go back to being a normal person.

There's a single moment of possibly-awkward silence before Fitz and Simmons start to ramble excitedly. Skye gives a sideways smile - it's starting to get familiar, them talking over and through each other - and startles when she realizes Fitz has said something directly do her.

"The thing with the raft, that was brilliant," he says, with a little hand gesture to encourage her.

"Yes, your information intake and processing speed was amazing, Skye," Simmons chimes in, smiling wide.

"Oh, it wasn't--"

Fitz shakes his head before she can finish downplaying. "It was great, Skye."

"Really, it was."

Warmth suffuses Skye's body, almost enough to cover the itching sensation just below the left side of her ribcage. She can't even be mad.

Later, she sees the twin carnations and blows air out through her cheeks. They're done in black-and-white so far - but not white-white or black-black, just outlines - and they're small, nestled between her ribcage and hip. Carnations always mean fascination, and could mean a whole lot else depending on what color they come in. 

She can't wait around to see what color they're going to be in. She's here as a means to an end, as a way to get information for the Rising Tide.

Skye wills the marks to fade. They stay stubbornly there, as impossible as the heather on her wrist. She closes her eyes, and leans her head back against her headboard. They'll fade after she leaves.

She doesn't believe in soulmarks anyway.

[*]

Skye knows the statistics. People get a handful of soulmarks over the course of their lives, and don't really keep more than two or three at a time. Skye didn't have one until she met Miles, and her wreath is just a vague blot around her ankle these days.

So after seeing the purple that's burst into color over her heart, Skye bursts into tears. She's in the shower, fighting post-mission drop. She knows immediately who the heliotrope is for: Ward, who gave her the skills to get out of that mansion alive. Devotion she doesn't deserve.

The heather has gotten brighter, little green shoots threatening to grow down her wrist. She's taken to wearing watches with thick bands, courtesy of her new SHIELD paycheck. Using their money to cover up the bonds she never wanted from them.

(No one's asked her about her marks. She knows they keep track of them on their agents, she's heard Fitz and Simmons talking about their yearly evaluations of their marks for one another. No one has asked her. She doesn't know if that's a good thing or a bad one.)

"Skye?" It's Fitz, just as politely anxious as his partner. "Are you alright? You're not bleeding anywhere, are you?"

The carnations haven't filled in, but the linework has gotten more definite. She can tell which is Fitz, and which is Simmons. They've never discussed it, but she knows they have marks for her, too. She can feel them sometimes, in the knowing-without-knowing way that she used to be able to feel Miles' mark for her.

"Have you passed out?" Fitz' voice cuts through her disassociation. "Please tell me you haven't, May gets so cranky when--"

"I'm fine!" Skye shoves her head under the spray, getting the worst of the chlorine out of her hair. Pools are hell. "I'll be out in a second."

"We got takeout for when you're done," Fitz says. She can't hear him leave, but she can just about feel it.

She really, really hopes she's imagining that.

[*]

Miles doesn't ask about the new soulmarks when she meets with him. He traces them, with questions in his eyes. She turns out the light before she can take her pants off. There's nothing on her ankle now. She hasn't felt him in weeks.

[*]

Skye can't make herself check her marks after the Miles thing. She knows they're still there. She can still feel them. But she doesn't want to see if the heather has retreated to just the single flower, if the carnations have faded. 

She makes herself look at her ankle, out of some sick need to know. She still doesn't believe in any of this, but she has to know if the universe has suddenly re-decided she's linked to Miles Lydon.

Her ankle is bare. No wreath, no smudge, no sign she's ever had either. She's free from Miles, from the Rising Tide.

She doesn't look at her side or her wrist. She can't bear to know.

[*]

The carnations recover before the heather or the heliotrope. Skye spends a lot of time in the lab, even sets up her laptop in there. She still doesn't believe in soulmarks, but it's more comfortable being with them than being in a room with Ward or Coulson. She knows they've forgiven her; she's got proof of it any time she lets herself look.

She follows Coulson and Ward's orders down to the letter, and tells herself it doesn't have anything to do with how weak her soulmarks look.

"I'm doing everything right," Skye complains, curled up at a desk in the lab with her laptop. "Yes sir, no sir, how many feet do you want me to jump, sir."

Simmons and Fitz exchange looks.

"He needs more time," Simmons says, not unkindly. Her slender fingers tap absently at the pad in front of her, and Skye thinks, _oh_.

(She feels something change in the mark that means _Jemma Simmons_ , but she can't think about that right now. Maybe ever.)

"He'll come 'round," Fitz tells her, smiling. He ducks his head, drops the smile, then summons it again when she smiles back. He's so genuinely happy to be spending time with her, and again: _oh_.

(Now it's both. She can't look.)

[*]

The heather gets back to where it was by the time Jemma's infected by the Chitauri virus. That's who she is to Skye now: Jemma, not Simmons. Fitz is still Fitz, but that's how he likes it, hates his first name. And Skye knows that about him now.

She can feel her marks pulsing in distress: Jemma's fear and Fitz's mixing like acid burning through her veins. There's no point in denying it now. She can feel them, gets their emotions almost like her own.

She ends up pacing back and forth until it wears a track into the rug.

"It's hard," May says, "when it's someone you care about in the line of fire."

Skye freezes. Her fingers twitch towards her side, where her carnations sear her skin. Most of the time they're a comfortable warmth. Now she can't think of anything else.

"They're important." Skye knows she trips over her words sometimes, but this comes out clumsy even for her. "They're...."

May scans Skye's face. Skye can't tell what she's thinking, and has no idea what she finds. In the end, she just nods. "You missed dinner. If you can't eat, you should at least get some electrolytes."

By now Skye knows better than to argue with May when she uses that tone. She follows the other woman into the lounge, and drinks the Gatorade obediently.

May doesn't tell her it will be alright. She just makes sure Skye gets hydrated, and coaxes her into eating a protein bar. Some childish part of her wants someone to tell her it will be alright, while the rest of her recognizes that she hates being lied to.

In the end, Jemma pulls through. Skye doesn't know what she would have done otherwise.

[*]

By the time May's mark shows, Skye is just resigned. She can't make this resolve itself in a way that works. This isn't a line of errant code that she can test over and over until it does what she want it to. 

SHIELD gave her marks she never asked for. Coulson, Fitz, Simmons, Ward, and now May. Tiny green leaves starting at the base of her spine, already reaching out towards her hips, to go with the heather tracing down her wrist and the carnations moving towards her ribs. Thyme. Courage.

She hasn't seen their marks for her, but she knows they exist. She can feel them, along with the emotions she gets from Jemma and Fitz. They didn't ask for this either, and she acknowledges that. They've been thrown together by circumstance, and most of Skye, most of the time, knows it.

But there's still a part of her that asks what her place in the SHIELD machine is, and if it's really one she wants.

She doesn't have an answer.

[*]

Her brain lights on fire during the Fitz and Ward op.

Not literally, though at this point she wouldn't be surprised. Fitz doesn't feel upset, but she can feel Jemma worrying in pulses that match the beating of her own frantic heart.

Coulson's heather goes cold on her wrist at exactly the time he freezes her out. That definitely says some things she doesn't like about how the rest of her marks could develop, but she doesn't have time to think about it. She can't think about anything other than Jemma's worrying and Fitz's fainter anxiety.

She talks Jemma into getting her three precious minutes of unfiltered time on SHIELD's network, and her heart leaps into her chest when Jemma shoots Sitwell in the chest.

"How was that?" Jemma shakes and stammers and twists her hands into each other.

"That was-- You could have--" 

Skye can't put anything into words, can't say how her brain has been on fire and she's tuned into exactly Jemma's wavelength and it's been exhausting with both of them worrying about Fitz. She could be losing Fitz right now, and Jemma could have gotten hurt or court-martialed or worse and--

Skye's mouth is on Jemma's before she can think better of it. Elation thrills through the mark, and Skye can't regret it even though she definitely didn't mean to.

Confusion pings from Fitz, and Skye takes a step back, raising the back of her hand to her wrist.

"We really shouldn't...."

Jemma's face falls, and she tries to smile but can't quite erase the disappointment from her face.

"Of course, you're right, that would be terribly unprofessional--"

Skye grabs Jemma's hand, squeezes her fingers. "I meant that we should wait for Fitz."

Relief washes over Jemma's face, followed by a smile. "Yes. This does concern him, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Skye says, an undeniable sense of rightness coming over her. "It does."

[*]

After they get the boys back, the senior agents go down to make their reports in person, leaving Skye, Jemma, and Fitz in the lab.

Skye and Jemma exchange a look when he tries to humble-brag about his place on the op, and Skye can feel Jemma's fondness radiate, thinks that if they can feel her like she can feel them, then Jemma knows she's just as fond of him. Of both of them.

"So um," Fitz ducks his head, "what did you two get up to while I was gone?"

"I shot a superior officer," Jemma says, defiant and worried both.

"I kissed Jemma," Skye says in turn.

"I um," Jemma flusters when Fitz looks to her, "I quite liked it. I'd like to do it again."

Fitz's face falls, just the same way Jemma's did. He strokes the back of his hand over his mouth, and immediately busies himself with stowing his gear.

"That's great," he mumbles, and Skye knows he means it, "that's-- I'm happy for you."

Skye crouches next to him, putting a hand on his arm. "I mean. I want to kiss you too."

His head shoots up, and the hope she feels through the mark makes Skye smile.

"Yeah um." He flushes, ears turning bright red. "I'd like that."

After that - and just a little kissing - they have to have the poly talk, which Skye only hates a little less than the bisexuality talk. It's hard to be too grumpy about it when she can feel their happiness through the marks on her side, though.

That night, she checks her carnations and sees they've colored themselves in: white, for pure love, and faithfulness. She still doesn't know how she feels about her place in the SHIELD machine, but she knows she has a place with the family inked on her skin. 

Heather, carnations, heliotrope, and thyme. A garden where she's finally at home.

**Author's Note:**

> Skye & Coulson: White heather, meaning protection  
> Skye & Fitz/Simmons: Carnations, generally meaning fascination; white carnations mean pure love  
> Skye & Ward: Heliotrope, devotion  
> Skye & May: Thyme, courage


End file.
